FORT WORTH, Texas (AP)-- A dispatcher who answered a 911 cell phone call from a man being stabbed to death was suspended without pay for lack of action on the call, police said.
Christine Sanders, 34, was suspended Monday from the Haltom City Police Department for four days after an internal investigation into that call and an unrelated call.
A report said Juan Gallegos would have died regardless of how Sanders handled the call. He was killed in August in a parking lot in Fort Worth near Haltom City, where he stopped after an apparent road-rage incident, police said.
Gallegos, 32, never talked to Sanders during the 15-second telephone call, but voices and the sounds of the slaying were recorded. A man could be heard accusing Gallegos of “brake-checking’ -- a term for tapping brakes to get a following car to slow down.
No officers were dispatched because Sanders did not have an exact location, police said.
She should have called Gallegos back and notified a supervisor, according to the internal affairs findings.
Jeromy M. Jolley, 21, was arrested Aug. 27 on a murder warrant after witnesses said his voice was that of the man on the tape. Last month, Brian C. Taylor, 21, was arrested on suspicion of trying to conceal evidence in the slaying.
Sanders could not be reached for comment. She will work with a training officer for two to six months when she returns, Haltom City police Cpl. Shawn Holt said.
Sanders’ suspension is also for her lack of action on another call in August in which a woman said a car without headlights on was following her, Holt said.
Sanders told her to drive to the police station, then hung up, but she should have stayed on theh phone with her and should have sent a car to meet the woman, Holt said.
A new tracking system for mobile 911 calls in Tarrant County has narrowed the search for cell phone callers in emergencies, but authorities say callers should give a location if possible.